First cut in aluminium. Disaster.

[Boyan Silyavski]

On a small mini mill i dont see how a good result will be obtained when deeper cuts than 1mm??? Normal 2 flute carbide cutter 30 degree upcut will give best results all over. 5 euro from China. There are better made for aluminum bits but they are not made for small machines anyway. They are made for serious machines and can give much higher material removal rate, which in this case is not viable.

What aluminum you are cutting? No name piece of aluminum could be absolute shit to cut. Buy only aluminum alloys made for certain purpose.

From my experience i can cut using any bit up to 3 flutes. Even straight ones or carbide tipped made for wood only. And result is always perfect. The key i say again is the machine rigidity. Any vibration heats the process excessively and things happen. Use the HSMAdviser calculator and you will see that perfect cut is never so deep as many people think.

As a general rule of a thumb that perfect cut happens at 12k rpm 1500mm/min 1 mm depth with any bit 6-12mm.


the tool stick-out is the another detail you should pay attention to. As even if machine is sturdy, the unnecessary stick-out changes the game quite much.